Proof:tulips coming up in my garden. Strawberries are not priced at $18/pint. There was corn on the cob at the grocery store. Corn on the cob!

Can you tell I’m excited? I don’t know about you, but this has been the longest, coldest most bitterly awful winter ever. I am so done with cold weather and snow {do you hear that, Mother Nature?}

So I am mentally and culinarily {that’s totally a word, right?} moving on from all things cold and winter.

And I’m celebrating with cupcakes.

I was initially intimidated by angel food cake. I have some vague recollection of making one when I was 12 or so. I think it was for my cat’s birthday. Oh gosh, did I just admit that?

Well. That angel food cake wasn’t such a success…it somehow deflated and turned from a fluffy, light cake to a dense, chewy thing. Poor Boots.

I thought it was worth another try though…because when angel food cake goes right, it goes so right!

Ohmygosh these cupcakes went so right…{well, after a few recipe revisions to remedy a sticky, eggy cupcake and then a wonderfully tasting but broken buttercream. Le sigh}.

The recipe I have for you here today is spring in the form of a cupcake. The light, sweet, fluffy angel food cupcakes have a lemon zing from the lemon zest I added. And the raspberry buttercream frosting…gah. So good. Tangy, tart and sweet. Pretty pink perfection.

These cupcakes are somewhat mini {even though they are baked in a standard muffin pan}. I recommend slathering on the frosting. As you can see below I have a high frosting:cupcake ratio. Has anyone ever complained about too much frosting on their cupcake? Not me 😉

Tips for making perfect angel food cupcakes:

use room temperature egg whites

make sure your bowl is spic and span, with no water droplets

beat the eggs until they are frothy and form soft peaks (that stay up, then ‘melt’ back into the eggs) before adding your salt & cream of tartar *this is where I was going wrong back in 2012; I was adding the salt too soon.

when adding your sugar, add 1-2 tbsp per minute, and stop beating when you can’t feel any sugar granules when rubbing the meringue between your fingers.

be gentle when adding vanilla, lemon zest and flour/sugar mixture! Fold it in with a spatula and go slow.

In a small bowl, combine flour, ½ cup sugar and lemon zest. Set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, beat egg whites on medium high for around 2 minutes, until they are frothy and have loose peaks (will stand for a second and then sink back into the eggs).

Add a pinch of salt and cream of tartar, continue to beat on medium-high for 3-5 more minutes until stiff peaks form (won't sink back into eggs).

At this point, continue beating on medium speed and gradually add the ⅓ cup portion of granulated sugar *by the tablespoon* over a period of 3-5 more minutes. Stop and scrape the sugar/eggs down from the bowl every few minutes.

Once sugar has dissolved completely (check by running meringue between your fingers, if no grains remain, you are done), fold in the vanilla extract followed by the flour/sugar/lemon zest mixture (best to do this in several batches, and *be gentle*)

Spoon mixture into muffin pan lined with muffin papers. The batter will stick out of the top of the muffin papers but it won't overflow while baking. Bake at 350 F for 15-18 minutes, until tops become golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Raspberry Buttercream

Using a mesh strainer and a spoon, mash raspberries against strainer until only seeds remain, collecting raspberry juice below in a bowl. Discard solids and set raspberry juice aside.

Using a stand mixer fitted with a whisk, beat the butter on medium high until light and fluffy. Beat in the powdered sugar, starting on low and increasing speed to medium once sugar begins to become incorporated. Beat for 2 or so minutes until all sugar and butter are well combined.

Beat in vanilla and raspberry juice. *your buttercream may look broken but it needs to be beaten for several minutes to completely incorporate the raspberries*

Beat on medium-high for one minute; scrape sides of bowl with spatula and repeat for 5 or more minutes until the color of buttercream is uniformly pink and smooth.

Using an icing bag fitted with the tip of your choice (mine was the wilton 1M), frost your cupcakes!

The way the light kisses those cakes and berries is just exquisite. I’m not usually a fluffy cake person, but the tangy lemon and berries sound irresistible here. I’m always looking for ways to use up egg whites, too. Thank you for sharing this lovely recipe.

I have made angel food cakes in an angel food pan before & cooled them upside on a bottle to keep them from sinking. Have you had any problems with this when baking cupcakes? I plan to try these this weekend.

Hi Phylis! I made these cupcakes three times and did not have any problems with sinking. I suspect the smaller volume makes them a little bit more forgiving than a full-sized angel food cake. Let me know how they work out for you!

Wonderful blog! I found it while surfing around on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while
but I never seem to get there! Thank youSantos recently posted…Santos

Dear Denise, These cupcakes look so beautiful. These are a perfect way to shake off the winter blues and begin a new season…on a bright and pink note! Pinning xo, CatherineCatherine recently posted…Spaghetti and Clams with Fresh Tomato Sauce

I made these cupcakes and I didn’t have a very good experience. The cake was not as airy and light as I thought. My frosting was a little over creamed and completely seperated. It came out so runny it was almost impossible to frost them. I’m not sure what I did wrong.

Hi Desiree! I’m so sorry they didn’t work out for you! I just re-made this recipe last week-end to make angel food donuts, and it worked great for me. When you spooned the mix into the muffin papers did you have ‘stiff peaks’ in your batter? Did your cupcakes sink when you baked them? Angel food cake is unfortunately a bit tricky, and it took me a few tries to get everything right. I was thinking of putting up step-by-step photos to make things more clear.
As for the frosting, I’m also not completely sure…I adapted from a food network recipe with nearly 500 5-star ratings so I’m wondering if maybe it could be something to do with the raspberries? I know my frosting looked a bit broken at first, but after beating it on high for a few minutes it all came back together. But it definitely wasn’t runny. Did you use fresh raspberries?
I am so sorry your angel food cupcakes didn’t work out. I hate wasting ingredients and time on a recipe that doesn’t work. I hope we can get to the bottom of this!

Holy Cow! I followed your directions to a T & they came out terrific!! I did make them in mini- version and just cut the bake time to 9-10mins. A big hit with my family…. Thanks for sharing this recipe!

These look gorgeous and my daughter agrees. I think we will be having a go at these. So lovely to have spring in sight. Thank you for sharing the recipe. –Romanyromany recently posted…First Go at Project Life

Just tried these and the combination of lemon and raspberry is amazing! Although my cupcake came out a little lumpy on top and a bit chewy on top, not sure what happened. Do you know what causes this?
I didn’t have cake flour so I substituted all purpose with a bit of cornstarch maybe this was why?

Hi Sarah! I’m so glad you liked the cupcakes! My cupcakes weren’t perfectly smooth on top, but they weren’t chewy. I’m not totally sure what would cause this, but if I were to guess, it could be that they were overcooked a little bit? Were the tops golden?

I made these tonight, my first time making angel food anything. I also didn’t have cake flour and used the cornstarch remedy but my cupcakes turned out perfect. I also made mine with fresh strawberries instead of raspberries. Delicious! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, I thank you and so does my family. I will definitely be making these again.

These looked lovely so I made them. I followed the recipe exactly and they turned out flat, sticky and shrunken. I thought I had made a flaw so I tried again and I had the same result. The texture was gummy and sticky. Any tips?

Hi Emma! First of all, I’m so sorry these didn’t work for you TWICE! That’s terrible 🙁

Secondly, it can be a challenge to troubleshoot this type of recipe since there are so many tiny little details that need to be just right. Was the batter super fluffy when you spooned it into the cupcake liners? Based on my research (aka: googling), it seems that people can have issues if they overbeat their eggs, fold the flour in too vigorously, use all purpose flour rather than cake flour or bang the pan or oven door at all.

If your batter was gummy and sticky, it sounds to me like your eggs *may* have been over-beaten. I have a video here that shows the ‘soft peaks’ and ‘stiff peaks’ stages for meringues, it may help?

Made these yesterday. Was a bit nervous because I’ve never made angel food cake anything before.
THESE. ARE. AWESOME!!!!!
So light and fluffy. They barley survived the hoard of 10yr old girls that attacked them. Not dry at all!!! Made strawberry frosting instead of raspberry. Also made lemon curd with the yolks and filled them. The cupcakes themselves are wonderful!